Further Beyond the Veil
by Lizzie24601
Summary: He will not come back... he will have moved on. Was Nearly Headless Nick right? This story is a bit of a relic from immediately after HP5's publication, but now that I reread it, a week before HP6 comes out, I realize it's actually pretty good, and it'
1. Act I, scene I

**Beyond The Veil**

"Not everyone can come back as a ghost... He will not come back," repeated Nick quietly. "He will have... gone on." My idea of Sirius's final adventure. It's ponderous and inspired in part by "Our Town."

------a thousand apologies to JK Rowling and Thornton Wilder.

_ I haven't read this old story since I wrote it, two years ago, and now that I revisit it a week before book 6's release, I realize that it was pretty good! But needs a bit of editing. So if you read this before, don't get excited, I'm not adding anything, I'm just fixing a couple blatant errors that are annoying me _

It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall. His body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ragged veil hanging from the arch…

And Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind and then fell back into place.

He caught his balance before he fell. Sirius stepped widely to steady his footing and, stooping to scoop up his fallen wand, pivoted to re-face Bellatrix. The floor felt unexpectedly cool, almost springy, against his knuckles. With a spell on his lips he turned to Bellatrix.

But she wasn't there.

Sirius spun around, nonplussed. He was alone. A muddy dark muted his senses, featureless shadows as though he had closed his eyes in a brightly lit room. He groped ahead of him, expecting to feel his fingers clutch the ragged black curtain behind which he had evidently stumbled. But ten paces, surely more than sufficient, brought him no closer to the archway.

"Remus?" he queried. He tried louder. "Remus! Moody! HARRY!"

Something stirred behind him. Sirius squinted and through the gloom perceived great rising platforms, like the stone steps of the room he had just left, only far more vast. A cool breeze tickled the back of his neck.

Sirius walked cautiously to the base of the first level. Black chairs, neatly arranged five rows deep, extended as far right and left as he bothered to look. In each chair dozed a man or woman, sleeping curiously still and upright despite the rigid chairs. Their faces were calm and unlined. Sirius shivered, feeling the ancient air settle around him. He somehow knew that these people had been sleeping here for a very long time, and would remain so for a very long time. Sirius approached the first row.

He expected the man's shoulder to feel like a statue against his tentative hand, perhaps with a thin film of dust. Instead, the warm body shuddered and stirred under his hand.

"Whozzat?" muttered the man thickly.

"Excuse me, I didn't mean… to disturb…"

The old wizard cracked open one eye and evaluated Sirius coolly.

"A new 'un, eh? Whadja doin' down this end?"

"I'm sorry?"

The head nodded towards the indeterminate darkness above and behind him.

"Ain't no vacancies down here," he said with a sleepy chuckle. "Try a' top." And with that he returned to his previous dozing state.

Sirius looked at the man for another moment before beginning his ascent. There were many more platforms than he had thought, an impossible number, each with its requisite five long rows of motionless sleepers. The chairs were spaced just wide enough for Sirius to stride through. The only sound was Sirius's own heart, beating at a comfortable, lazy pace, although he had now been running for a while. He could no longer see the floor where he had begun, nor could he see the top ahead of him. Sirius did not know how long he had been running through these dark rows, and had someone asked, he probably would not have been able to recall where he was going, nor having ever been anywhere else.

Quite abruptly he reached the final platform. The occupants of these chairs were vaguely familiar to Sirius, as though he had once seen them in a dream. He felt a curious sensation; the sight of these faces was registering in some deeper part of his soul, without translating fully to his tired brain.

There was an empty chair in the first row. Sirius walked slowly towards it. To the left of the chair dozed a younger man with unruly black hair. Sirius half wanted to run over to the man and shake him awake with a great embrace, but the idea flickered out as he approached the empty chair. He turned to take his seat.

As he did so, he spotted something that had been behind him, facing the sleepers. A stone archway hung with a thin black curtain. A breeze stirred the ragged cloth, and Sirius's mind recharged with a start. In flashes, he remembered the death eaters, the fighting, the curtain, Harry… The room he must have left just moments before lay behind that curtain, and Sirius ran forward, his godson's name on his lips.

Just as he reached the threshold, a voice stopped him.

"Sirius."

-----------------

comments would be appreciated. More to come.


	2. Act I, scene II

Sirius wanted to continue, wanted to pass back through the curtain as he'd intended, but he felt he could no more disobey that voice than had it been that of his godson.

            "Sirius Black."  Not a command or query, just a comment, stating a fact.

            A man sat beside Sirius's empty chair, opposite from where James Potter dozed.  He had not noticed this man before, though he now stood out from the rest with one particularly glaring distinction.  He had not been asleep.

            "Where am I?"

The man, neither young nor old, smiled.

            " 'All the world is a stage, and the men and women, merely players.'  And that would make this place the wings."

The Hogwarts curriculum having lopsidedly condensed all of literature into a single semester of Muggle Studies, Sirius did not recognize the quote and took it literally.

            "I didn't know there was a theater in the Ministry.  Are you the director?"

            "No," the man chuckled, "I haven't nearly the power of the Director.  I am just here to help you… follow his stage directions.  I suppose that would make me the Stage Manager."

            "The stage manager…" Sirius repeated.  "I'm sorry, I…  I have to go help Harry!"

            "Do not step past that curtain," the stage manager warned, before Sirius had moved to do so.  "If you do, you will not be allowed to return."

            "Return?" Sirius asked, puzzled.  "Why would I want to return here?"

            "I can not keep you here by force, but this is where you belong now.  You can not be at ease out there.  Only here can you rest, and wait with the others."

            "Wait?  Wait for what?  I don't understand."

            "Sirius," said the stage manager, not unkindly.  "You are dead."

Further apologies to Thornton Wilder fans.  Just, the way I had been picturing it reminded me of "Our Town," so I figured I'd run with it.  Don't worry, I won't have Sirius sobbing at his mother's knees begging her to look at him.  Or will I?  XD


	3. Act I, scene II, cont

"Dead?" Sirius smirked.  "Yeah, okay, sure.  That was just a stunner Bellatrix hit me with."

            "You are correct.  The death eater's spell was harmless.  But if you are still alive, Sirius, then where are you now?"

            And Sirius looked around for the first time.  His mind was clearer now, and he saw who really sat before him in this bewitched slumber.  In the rear rows dozed people Sirius only knew by connection or reputation, distant relatives and low level death eaters, and a handsome boy Harry's age who Sirius dimly recalled seeing at the Triwizard Tournament.  The second row seated a more painful troupe, the members of the Order who had died for the cause during Voldemort's first reign of terror.  And his parents.

            Rage swelled in Sirius's breast at the notion of his noble fallen comrades sharing their resting place with his despised parents.  But this was quickly overshadowed by the sight of James and Lily, napping in the first row.

Sirius fell to his knees before the Potters.

            "James?" he whispered, and again with more urgency.  "James!"

            "Heya Padfoot, long time no see," James muttered without opening his eyes.  "Drop in again some time…"

Sirius looked helplessly at the stage manager, who only nodded back at the sleepers.

Lily stirred.  With a yawn she awoke halfway, and gazed calmly at the newcomer.

            "Sirius, you're here already?"

            "I… Yes, Lily, I'm here.  Where are we?"

            "But if you're here, Sirius, who is watching the baby?"

It took a moment for Sirius to register that the baby in question was his gangly godson.

            "Harry is with your sister, Lily."

            "Oh yes, my sister, of course.  She's really not so bad as she seems, you know."  Lily yawned.  "I am so very tired."

She closed her eyes and seemed to return to sleep.  Sirius gently removed the hand he had placed on her knee, when she suddenly gripped it tightly.

            "And Sirius!  Tell Harry I love him…  And I'll see him when I wake."

And her dark hair drooped over her face as Lily's breathing rejoined the steady rhythm of those around her.

            Sirius swallowed hard, and stood to face the stage manager.  His eyes were glistening

"Why are they all here?" he demanded.

"They're dead."

"Well yes, I know that, but what the hell sort of heaven is this?"

The Stage Manager stood up.  He reached into the pocket of his tweed jacket and removed a pair of small spectacles [not glasses, spectacles], which he placed on the tip of his nose.  Had Sirius been an American muggle, he might have been reminded of Mr. Rogers calmly trapped in a dark cabinet to demonstrate claustrophobia.  But being a British wizard, he only wondered briefly at the man's idiosyncratic muggle garb.

            "What the hell sort of heaven is this?" he repeated.   The stage manager put a hand on Sirius's shoulder and gently turned him away from slumbering rows.

            "Why Sirius, I did not think you were a Christian."

            "A Christian?  No, of course not, I'm not a muggle."

            "Then why would you think this is heaven at all?"

Sirius furrowed his brow in confusion.

            "I… I don't know, I never… then what is it?"

The Stage Manager sighed, and rubbed his spectacles with a checkered handkerchief.

            "The wizarding world, though its members consider themselves separate from and often superior to the "muggles," is nevertheless highly steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  While witches and wizards prefer to disassociate themselves from muggle religions, many examples of these faiths persist in the magical culture, from the obvious celebration of a secular Christmas to the more archaic adherence to the muggle workweek, which is of course traditionally fashioned around the Sabbath.  The archetypes of heaven and hell also hold power with wizards, even those such as yourself who never gave any thought to the matter, which often makes explaining this place to wizards even harder than it is for the typically agnostic muggle."

            Sirius blinked.  "Okay…"

The stage manager broke out of his didactic fit and again looked at Sirius.

            "Sorry, right.  What I mean to say is, this is not heaven nor is it hell, in any traditional sense.  Otherwise, why would the Potters and your parents be here together, when you clearly think your parents are not fit to kiss James Potter's feet?"

Finally, something that made sense to Sirius.

            "So, this is eternity?  This is it?  Everyone I ever knew just sitting around napping?"

            "That's the idea, yes.  But they're also waiting.  For what, I don't know, don't ask me.  It could be the apocalypse, the end of time, a loved one, Godot, I don't know.  I have a feeling it might be different for everyone."

            Sirius put his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes vigorously.  When he next looked up, his face was drawn and shadowed.  He swept his hair out of his face, squared his shoulders, and looked the stage manager in the eye.

            "No."

            "No?"

            "No.  I'm not going to spend eternity sitting here, twiddling my thumbs.  First of all, I'm not dead.  But without even getting into that…  Harry needs me.  The Order needs me.  I have things to do.  Maybe I'd go for it if this were some sort of paradise, but it isn't.  I'd rather be back in Azkaban.  I'm not staying."

            "I'm sorry, Sirius," the stage manager said, clearly flustered.  "There is no other option."

            "Yes," said a voice from behind them, "There is."

Sirius spun around.  It was James.

---------------------

bum bum BUM!  All the comments so far have been really really appreciated.  And don't worry, I'll be able to drop this explanatory action-less vein real soon.


	4. Act I, scene II, cont more

            "James…" Sirius whispered.  He gazed at his fully awakened best friend, whose incoherent muttering earlier on hadn't really convinced Sirius that this was truly James.

            "This is not your only option, Padfoot," James said, glaring quickly at the stage manager.  "Don't let him tell you you've got no choice."

            But Sirius hardly heard what he said.  Despair was closing in on him.  The unreality of it all had been shattered by James's presence, and Sirius's joy at seeing his best friend was quickly giving way to misery as he realized the truth of the situation.

            "Oh Prongs," Sirius moaned as he fell to his knees.  "Is it true?  Is this it?  Is this really all there is?"

            "Well, I don't really know any better than you, Sirius.  We haven't been here all that long either, y'know.  But I can tell you that the weather forecast doesn't change much around here," James chuckled.  "But really now, it's not so bad.  Most of the time you're asleep, anyway.  Come to think of it, I can't remember when I was last awake.  Stage manager?"

            "Last year," said the stage manager wearily.  "I woke up you and Lily to see Harry.  When Voldemort's wand did the backfiring thing."

            "Right-o.  Yes, so really the only bad thing is the maddening lack of news.  How is my son, Sirius?"

            "He's you, James.  Right down to the way your hair sticks up in the back.  He…  Sometimes it hurts too much to look at him."  There was a silence, and Sirius coughed.  "Well, he's fifteen now."

            "Sixteen."

The pair of Marauders looked at the stage manager.

            "He's sixteen now.  Look."  He held out a gilded pocket watch.  "Has been for three days."

Sirius was horrorstruck.  He might as well have been told his godson had turned into a toad.  The stage manager shrugged.

            "I really can't make heads or tails out of how time passes here.  I'm always trying to set a proportion to figure out the rate, then suddenly it's last week again."

            "You're telling me… that I've been here for over a month?!"

            "Yep.  Time flies, eh?"

            "So Harry escaped from the death eaters, then?  Is he alright?  Ron and Hermione?  Remus?"

            "I wouldn't know.  All they tell me is the time.  And, of course, who's dead yet."

            "What did I tell you?" James said cheerfully.  "Maddening lack of news."

Maddening did describe it well.  Sirius nearly tore out large chunks of scalp as he pulled his hair in frustration.

            "You don't have to just settle for this, though," James said gently, placing a hand on his friend's back.  The stage manager shot him a warning look.  "There is another way to go."

Sirius looked up at James with wide, watery eyes, more dog-like than usual for his human form.

            "This isn't going to help him, Potter," spat the stage manager.

            "I just want him to know his options," James retorted, before turning back to his broken friend.  "There is a way to go back."

            "I want to!  I'll go back as a bloody portrait, I don't care, just tell me how to go back."

            "It's not easy, Sirius.  I was afraid, I chose to stay here.  But Lily…  Lily was inconsolable.  Her baby needed her.  So she tried to go back."

            "Then why is she still here?"

            "I said it wasn't easy.  She wasn't able to stand it, and because hers was a magical death, she was allowed to return here, to change her mind."

Sirius was nonplussed.  The Potters were the bravest people he knew, yet they were afraid to return from death.  How bad could it be?

            "How bad can it be?

            "There are all these rules and restrictions, on where you can go, who you can talk to, what you can say.  Break a rule, and _poof_ you lose your soul.  It's really not all it's cracked up to be, being a ghost.

-----------------

I'm sorry about the brevity and lack of action, but I'm going out today so I couldn't put more time into it.   But y'all are Harry Potter fans, so y'all are used to a lot of exposition.  ;-)  It'll pick up tomorrow, I promise.  


	5. Act I finale

"A ghost!" Sirius cried happily.  "Of course!  Why didn't I think of it before?"

            "Attaboy, Sirius!"

            "Yes, yes!" Sirius exclaimed, thinking aloud.  "Like Nearly Headless Nick!  Or that History of Magic professor, the one we used to throw quills through.  Ghosts are practically alive… why isn't everyone a ghost?"

            "You have to understand what you'd be sacrificing," said the stage manager, as though speaking to a rowdy young child.  "Few are given the chance to return, and even fewer go through with it."

Sirius leaped to his feet, arms wiggling with nervous energy.   James looked nearly as happy as Sirius, but the stage manager was glowering.

            "What do I have to do?  Where do I go?"

            The stage manager was exasperated.  "You just walk back through the veil.  But I'm warning—"

But the stage manager never got to finish his warning.  Sirius ran to the archway, then with a second thought ran back, kissed Lily on the forehead, squeezed James's hand, and strode confidently beyond the whispering black veil.

            The stage manager put his face in his hands.  After a moment, he stood and faced James accusingly.  

            "Why did you do that?  Don't you remember how torn Lily was when she came back here?"

            "I just think Sirius deserved the option!"

            "You just want to live… no, haunt vicariously through him!"

            "Perhaps…  But perhaps also I just want to give him the choice that Lily had."   

            "And it tore her up inside!"

            "And I think she's better off for at least knowing she'd had a choice!"

They were both shouting now, but none of the sleepers were disturbed.  The stage manager turned aside.

            "At any rate," he said through gritted teeth, "he'll be back soon enough."

            "Oh I don't know about that," James replied.  "He just might surprise us.  But if he does return," he said, now yawning, "wake me up so's I can make fun of him."

And with that, James fell asleep.  

---------------------------------

Sorry about the brevity, folks.  I had stuff to do this morning.  But I'm just gonna take the opportunity to respond to some of the reviews.  First of all, thank you for the overwhelmingly positive response!  I should write fanfiction more often—it's really an ego-boost for a writer.

Sapphireskies, with all the questions—keep reading, silly girl!

BryteTwilight—if the stage manager reminds you of someone from the Matrix, so be it, but it's purely unintentional as I've never seen the movie.

EmpressSasami, who thanked me for writing often—well I'm doing this as a writing exercise of sorts, and what's the point of exercise if you don't do it every day!  ;-)

GroovyGirlHP, who wanted to know what this was based on—it's structurally inspired in small part by the third act of Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town," but really the influence is so small that I needn't have mentioned it, except for my own integrity.  Nevertheless, it is an amazing play, and if you're interested you should have no trouble finding a community theater production; it's a standard.


	6. Act II, scene I

And for the second time that hour (for how could he allow himself to believe it had really been over a month), Sirius passed through the threshold of the crumbling stone archway.  He had not paused to consider what might occur in that moment, but had he done so he may have anticipated a blinding flash or a thunder clap, to signify his transition from man to ghost.  There was neither.

            Rather, midstride, Sirius felt lightened.  Considering he was being stripped of his human body, the effect was strangely not like being relieved of 170 pounds of flesh and bone, but just the lifting of a very heavy cloak, like a dentist's lead-lined x-ray blanket.

            He was in the steeped stone room of the Department of Mysteries, and some debris of the recent battle remained.  A torn robe here, a shattered fragment there, all looking quite abandoned and forgotten.  Sirius was surprised to find that he was able to pick up the tattered corner of robe lying near his feet; he'd had a vague expectation of passing through solid objects.  But as he strode to the exit, he felt very human indeed.

            That changed as he left the Department of Mysteries.  Once he passed through that dark door, Sirius's feet fell straight through the floor.  He would have just kept sinking until he hit bedrock, had the floors of the Ministry not been sealed with an Impervious charm.

            Sirius slowly lifted a foot and gingerly placed it on the illusion of a floor.  He no more expected this to work than you or I would expect to be able to walk on water.  But to Sirius's delight, he found that if he placed his foot just so, he'd sort of slide forward.  Thus Sirius discovered the curious form of ghostly perambulation most often described as gliding.

            Sirius glided forth, amused that this old dog had learned a new trick.  His first agenda was to leave the Ministry and find Harry.  But as he approached the lifts, he noticed a faint disturbance in the air.  Heading into an open lift was a shaky, glistening column of air.  Though physically no different from the air around it, looking through this column the world seemed to be drawn with a squiggly pen, like the reflecting haze of a hot summer day.  

            Curious, Sirius followed the disturbance on to the lift.  No one seemed to notice the foggy column, nor did they notice Sirius himself.  Interdepartmental memos buzzed through Sirius's head.  The closed doors of the lift were mirrored, and he saw that the column did not reflect on the mirror.  The fat witch next to Sirius coughed, and in the mirror he saw her rummage in her bag for a lozenge, pushing the bag away from her body and into Sirius's leg.  Or what should have been his leg.  For in the reflection, there was no leg there, and no Sirius.  

            A cool female voice spoke from nowhere.  "Level three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes," she said, and continued to describe the various agencies and committees included in the department.  Several wizards and a memo left the lift.  The watery light advanced towards the door until it was surrounding an unaware young witch.  The lift began to move again.

            "Level three and a third, Department of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Poltergeists."  Sirius had never noticed this level before.  Apparently, the other wizards and witches did not notice it even now.  The lift had not stopped, but the column had passed through the doors.  Sirius hesitated for a moment, then followed suit.

            He found himself in a vast waiting room, lined with chairs of all heights and styles.  Sirius's feet sank to the floor with a more solid thud, and a feeling of human existence returned to him.  A mirror behind the desk proved that he had regained his reflection.

            But what sort of reflection was that!  He looked like himself, yes.  But he seemed to have been stamped out in a single color, a dull shade of grey, while the walls of the room were painted a revoltingly cheery pink.  And with little trouble he could see right through himself to the chair behind him.

            "Please take a clipboard from the desk, sir!" exclaimed the ghostly witch behind the desk.  She was holding a bottle of red nail polish, and half of her left hand was painted.  But as the polish dried on her fingernails, it slowly turned from the garish red of the bottle to the same grey hue of the rest of her skin.

            Sirius took the clipboard back to his seat to complete.  As he walked back from the desk, he looked around.  The room was full of ghosts… like himself, he realized with a pang.  The shimmering column of light was nowhere to be seen.  

            "Name," he muttered, reading the clipboard's questionnaire.  "Gender.  Species.  DOD?"

            "Date of Death," offered the ghost next to him.  The ghost turned towards Sirius and tipped his lavishly plumed hat, taking most of his head with it.  He looked at Sirius for a moment, then grew bug-eyed.

            "Sirius Black?!"

----------------------------

Comments?  Suggestions?  Flames?


	7. Act II, scene II

Sorry about the delay, folks!  I was away for a few days.

StrangeEmily—Your comment made my morning!  I definitely wasn't expecting anyone to pick up on my little Les Miz nod.  Woo!

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Sirius blinked at the ghost until recognition dawned.

            "Hey, Nearly Headless Nick!"

Sir Nicolas de Mimsy-Porpington was thunderstruck.  He would have blanched had he any blood in his face to begin with.

            "How's it hanging, Nick?  Still by a thread I see."

Nick stared at the new ghost.

            "You… you decided to… to come back?!"

            "Come on, Nick, you know me.  I was a Gryffindor!  Brave as they come, and all that rot.  Couldn't leave Harry alone, now, could I?"

            "But I… I told Harry you wouldn't."

            "Told Harry I wouldn't what?"

            "Come back!  Sirius, after you… after Harry got back to Hogwarts, he asked me if you could come back.  Like I did."

            "Really?  Oh that's great, Nick!  That means Harry hasn't been thinking I abandoned him, he knows I'm coming!"

Nick covered his face for a moment and turned away.

            "Mysedjooundt."

            "Pardon?"

            "I said you wouldn't.  Come back.  I told Harry that you would go on."

            "But…  Why?  What made you think you knew what I'd do?"

Nick was still looking away, wringing his transparent hands.

            "I just don't understand what would possess you!   So to speak.  You don't still think I'm a murdering coward, do you?"

            "No no, of course not…  Hey look at this!" Nick was staring at the magazine rack.  "They've actually got a recent copy of something!  _Spirits for Spirits_.  Hmm, from April 1789, I haven't read this one, even if it is a sommelier's magazine…"

            "Nick?"

            "Okay, I'm sorry Sirius.  I really did think you would stay on the other side," the ghost lowered his voice.  "I didn't think you'd cop out, like I had."

            "Well listen, no harm done really, Nick.  I mean, you were wrong, I'm here now aren't I?  Just make it up to me by helping me get a hang of this ghost gig."

The other ghost beamed.

            "Sir Nicolas is at your service, Sirius!

            Three hours later they had almost completed Sirius's forms.  The Department of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Poltergeists required strict documentation of all the newly undead.  Sirius actually got off lucky; vampires and demons and other, more dangerous undead had hundreds of pages of forms to complete.  It would be bad public relations for the Ministry to let blood-sucking types run around without proper documentation, of course.

            Sirius and Nick presented the mostly-finished forms to the secretary, who promptly dripped nail polish on the top page.  After completing a fresh version of the first page to replace the red-splattered original, the pair of ghosts headed towards the exit and entered the lift.

            The first thing Sirius noticed was that the wavery column of light was back.  The strange disturbance in the air was floating around the lift just as before.  Sirius had quite forgotten about it while in the Department, but now he couldn't help wondering whether the… the thing was following him.

            "Hey Nick," Sirius said quietly.  "Do you see that funny light in the corner?  What do you suppose that is?  Nick?  Hey, Nick!"

Sirius was alone in the lift.  Nearly Headless Nick was gone.


	8. Act II, scene III

"Nick!  Where'd you go?"

            "Calm down, you fool."

            "Where are you?"

            "I'm right here."

Sirius looked around the lift for the source of Nick's voice, until his eyes came to rest on the watery disturbance in the corner.

            "Boo."

Sirius gave a decidedly un-girly shriek.

            "But…  But where did you /go/, Nick?  Where's your body?"

            "Under a strip mall outside London.  There's a  Sharper Image there, y'know with the massage chairs?  Not quite a mausoleum with a view, but it will have to do, eh?  At least I'm not buried in some horrid lot in New Jersey, like Peeves is."

            "New Jersey?"

            "Yes, there was a frightful misunderstanding when he was interred.  Why do you think Peeves is so grouchy?  You would be too if you had to spend eternity in New Jersey."

Sirius was terribly confused.

            "Okay, but where is your, umm, ghostly body?  Why don't you have any form, like you did a few minutes ago?  And why didn't you say anything to me when we were on the lift earlier?"

            "I'd been at the Department for several hours already when you arrived, we couldn't have been on the same lift.  Must have been someone else."

            "I don't understand…"

Nearly Headless Nick sighed.  "Newbie ghost.  Okay, quick tutorial.  Right now, you look just like me.  And all other ghosts.  We all look the same to one another."

            "But back in the Department before, there were dozens of different ghosts!  How would I have recognized you, and you me, if we all looked the same?"

            "It's different in the Department of Ghosts, Sirius.  Oh, this is our stop."  Sirius followed the wiggling light that spoke with Nick's voice out of the lift and into the main lobby of the Ministry.  No one took any notice of the two ghosts, who floated to an empty corner to continue talking.

            "As I was saying," Nick continued, "ghosts rarely take on their human forms.  What you see right now, the shimmery bit of air in front of you?  That's me.  That's the form my soul takes to other ghosts.  And you look exactly the same.  We're completely invisible to the living, and we have no solidity.  We can't pick up a solid object or feel the temperature of the air.  If we walk right through a living person, they have no idea.  Go ahead, try it."

            Sirius looked down at what should have been his body.  There was nothing there, just a bit of haze.  He lifted his arm.  Sirius felt his arm move, but there was no change in the shapeless space where his body should have been.  He leaned against the wall, and started to fall right through it.

            "Why don't they see us?  I was able to see you when I was alive."

            "Ahh, but that was only at Hogwarts.  Did you ever see a ghost outside of Hogwarts' grounds?"

            "I think I might have seen a few in Hogsmeade."

            "Then those ghosts must have died there.  Sirius, we can only take on our old human form in certain circumstances.  First, you may haunt the location of your death.  Where did you die, may I ask?"

            "Downstairs, in the Department of Mysteries.  I think."

            "Oh that's a shame, it must be very lonely down there.  Second of all, you can haunt the location of your body.  Hence, there is a haunted Sharper Image outside London.  The proprietors are quite frightened by me," Nick's voice swelled with pride.

            "I… I don't know if I was… if there was a body."

            "Really?  Blown to smithereens, eh?  Well that is also a shame, you're just as bad off as the poor ghosts who were cremated.  Pity."

Sirius was growing anxious.  "Where else could I haunt?"

            "You can apply for special dispensation at the Department of Ghosts to be allowed to haunt somewhere besides your locations of death and burial.  However, usually this is only permitted when the ghost was, say, tortured to the brink of death in some antagonist's lair, but ultimately died in St. Mungo's."

            "That's it then?  The only place I can be a real ghost is in the Department of Mysteries?"

            "No, not quite.  There are many safe spots for ghosts around the world.  Hogwarts is one of them.  Us four house ghosts, Professor Binns, and a few others are on staff there.  Dumbledore's doing, of course.  So we're allowed to stay at Hogwarts during the school year, and we can invite friends on special occasions, like Death-days."

            "What about Moaning Myrtle?"

            "She actually died in that bathroom stall she haunts.  Poor girl; she chose to come back to haunt some little witch in her year who had taunted her.  But now the bully has long since graduated, and Myrtle hasn't anywhere else to go."  Nick coughed lightly.  "And there are some other places, too.  Hundreds of "haunted houses" allow real ghosts on Halloween.  The Department of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Poltergeists, of course, lets all ghosts take form there, to prevent confusion.  There's some monastery in Indonesia that accepts ghosts by the dozen.  Opera houses sometimes like to employ resident ghosts too."

Sirius, however, was not interested in haunting an opera house.  

"Do you think I would be allowed at Hogwarts?"

            "I don't know.  I suppose you could apply to Dumbledore for a position; did he perhaps favor you while you were a student?"

Sirius laughed.  "No, you remember, Nick, I was quite the troublemaker.  But I think he likes me now.  I think." 

            "Then perhaps he will try to find a spot for you!  But remember, Sirius," Nick softened his tone confidentially.  "Even if you do come to Hogwarts.  All the students do eventually graduate.  In a few years, you will be just as alone at Hogwarts as you would be in that monastery in Indonesia."

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Whatcha think?


	9. Act II, scene III, cont

But Sirius did not heed the other ghost's warning.  In fact, he hardly heard it.  For as Nearly Headless Nick spoke, Sirius spotted a shabby wizard moping his way into the Ministry.  Sirius bounded toward him.

"Remus!  Remus, over here!"

Sirius leaped in front of Remus Lupin and began to babble excitedly.

            "By gum, Remus, I'm so happy to see you!  I was trapped behind that miserable curtain—how's Harry?  What happened?  Tell me everything…"

But Remus walked straight through his old friend without so much as a nod.  His gait was slow and weighty as the living wizard made his way to the information desk.  Sirius bounced after him, all but wagging his tail in delight.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lupin, not today."  The man behind the information desk had spoken.  Sirius stopped short and cocked his head to listen.

"Why am I not surprised?" his friend sighed.  Remus looked about ten years older than when Sirius had last seen him.  The bags under his eyes, the gauntness of his face, the shabbiness of his clothes, all seemed accentuated.

            "I wish I could help you, Mr. Lupin, but you still don't have the security clearance necessary—"

            "Sure, sure.  No one has the security clearance to enter the Department of Mysteries except the Minister himself and a couple janitors.  Where's the sense in that?" and although his tone had not changed, Sirius knew his friend was enraged.  "All we've asked of the Ministry is that we be allowed to investigate a little.  We haven't been in that room since our friend… disappeared, and we just want to look around!  Maybe take a few measurements, a picture, just _some_thing."

            "I understand your need for closure, Mr. Lupin—"

            "It's not closure!  We just need to know what happened."  Remus shook his head sadly.  "I thought you guys were supposed to be on our side now."

            "The Ministry, while acknowledging the Dark Lord's return, has no official position on this issue and will not comment until such a time when—"

            "Thank you.  I'll be back again tomorrow."

Remus tossed down his visitor's button [which read, under purpose of visit, "Fruitless Inquiry"], and turned to leave.

            Sirius was crestfallen.  Were Remus to go down to the Department of Mysteries, Sirius would be able to take his human form and speak to him!  But it sounded as though Fudge wouldn't let anyone at all into the Department.  Nevertheless, Sirius squared his shoulders and made to follow Remus home.  

            "You won't be able to talk to him!" Nearly Headless Nick cried from across the room.  "Don't go with him!  It will only make it harder!"

But Sirius waved him off.

            A little while later, Remus Lupin was walking down Grimmauld Place, his fists shoved deep in his pockets, his thoughts focused inward.  As the wizard approached #12, he felt a faint electric shiver in the air around him.  Remus looked up with a quizzical look on his face, then shrugged it off.

            Sirius Black stepped off of his friend.  He had been standing in Remus's footsteps, quite literally, pounding the air and shouting with all his might, with the sole effect being that Remus had glanced up.  Now this was progress!

            A moment later, Sirius was hurrying after his friend into his ancestral home, entirely unnoticed by the rather large crowd of witches and wizards filling the foyer.

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Listen, folks.  I've got another two, three chapters left to this sucker.  But tomorrow I'm leaving for Italy for three weeks.  I know three weeks isn't a long time between updates for some stories on this website, but it seems pretty ridiculous to me.  Plus I'm afraid that three weeks from now interest will have been lost, mine and yours.  So.  Should I try to rush it and finish this up in the next 24 hours and post it as is, to be proofread and gussied up in three weeks?  Or do y'all want me to just wait till then so that I can give it the proper send-off?  


	10. Act II finale

I tried to post this before I left the country on Friday, but fanfiction.net was down all day!  Ahh!  The hotel tonite (in lovely Florence—Firenze in Italian, hee) happens to have free internet, and I had saved the chapter to a disk just in case I would be able to update.  

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#12 Grimmauld Place was bustling with activity, relatively speaking.  The foyer was abuzz with life as the Weasleys, Moody, Tonks, and others tried to finish their conversations over the din of Mrs. Black.

            "As I was saying, Martha…"

            "Stay on your guard, now…"

            "VILE!  FILTH!  DESECRATION!"

            "Hey, Remus is back!" Tonks exclaimed as they noticed the new arrival.  "Any luck?"

            "Status quo," Remus replied as he shrugged off his cloak.  Sirius floated casually around the room, gazing at each familiar face.

            "CRETINS!  SQUATTERS!"

            "Squatters?"

            "That's a new one."

            "It's accurate enough," Moody said gruffly.  "Now that we're here without any heir to this dump."

            "Let's hope that horrid little house elf doesn't appear and kick us all out!"

            "Oh, do try to understand, Mrs. Black!" Mrs. Weasley was pleading with the portrait.

            "SCUM!  TRASH!"

            "Give it up," Remus said.  None of us can quiet her."

But suddenly, Mrs. Black was quiet.

            Sirius looked up at the unexpected silence.  To his amazement, his mother's wild eyes were, for just a moment, fixed on him.  Was it possible she could see him?  Tentatively, Sirius approached the quietly heaving portrait.  

            "Mom?"  A deep breath.

            "TRAITOR!  BLOOD TRAITOR!"

Well that answered that question, whatever good it did him.

            "She hasn't gone off on that line for awhile," Tonks remarked as she roped the curtains tightly over the portrait, muffling the sound.

With that, the motley of the assemblage of the Order of The Phoenix retreated to the kitchen.

            As he listened to the news and gossip of the Order, Sirius did not know whether to laugh or cry.  Evidently, they all had moved on.  Life had continued without him.  That was a good thing, right?  But then, why did Sirius feel so betrayed?

            Remus was the only one who looked at all worse for wear, and of course that could be attributed to that time of the month.  The others were robust, smiling, laughing creatures.  Sure, whenever Sirius was alluded to, a pall would fall over the company, but it would quickly be lifted by Mrs. Weasley pouring more drinks or Tonks dropping something.  It was clear that these were not people in deep mourning.  Sirius hated them for it.  And he hated himself for feeling that way.

            "Harry sent me an owl the other day," Mrs. Weasley said.  Sirius's ears pricked at the mention of his godson.  "He thanks everyone for their birthday presents."

            "Poor boy."

            "How is he holding up?"

            "Not well, I'm afraid," Mrs. Weasley reported.  "Ron writes him long letters every couple days, and the only responses are a few terse sentences.  He doesn't actually talk about it, of course—teenaged boys don't do that.  But, well…  The boy needs a mother, now more than ever."

            "Why can't we bring Harry here again!" Tonks cried.

            "You know what Dumbledore said," Moody grumbled, his magical eye swiveling around the room.  "He has to stay with those relations of his.  Now more than ever."

            "It's not fair!" Sirius protested silently.

            "It's not fair!" Mrs. Weasley protested.  We're the closest thing to family he's got now."

            "Then you'll just have to mother him from afar."

            "That I will.  Come on, let's go write Harry a letter."  With that, Mrs. Weasley, Tonks, and the others wiped their eyes and stood to leave the room.

            Sirius shuddered.  He cursed all the years he and Harry had spent apart, all that wasted time…  And then, with a start, he realized that Harry would probably be better off now if Sirius had never escaped from Azkaban.  In the two short years Harry had known his godfather, he'd finally had something resembling a family member.  But that family member had been stupid enough to get himself killed, and now Harry was even more alone than he'd been before.

            Sirius was too busy cursing his existence to notice that Mad-Eye Moody was still in the room.  The deformed old auror was sitting quietly, facing away from Sirius.  He could hear the magical eye rolling in its socket.  But it was still a shock when Moody spoke.

            "I know you're here."

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And there, my friends, is your three week cliffhanger.  Leave me lots of detailed reviews so that I feel motivated to finish this sucker when I come home.  Arriverderci!


	11. Act III, scene I

I'm baaaaack.  I've been home from Italy for a couple weeks now, but everything has been so hectic with shopping for college that I couldn't find time to write.  Thank you all so much for your reviews on the last chapter.  You might want to skim the last few chapters, since I was barely able to remember what had happened myself since the last update…

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"I know you're here."

Sirius jumped.  There was no one else in the room; to whom was Moody speaking?  Sirius glanced under the table to see if there was perhaps someone hiding.

            "Sirius."

Alright, Moody was talking to him after all.  How?

            "Are you wondering how I know you're here, Sirius?"

He couldn't help himself from nodding and responding.  "Moody!  I'm so glad you can see me!  Why didn't you say anything before?"  Sirius ran over to the old auror, but the good eye did not fix on the ghost, nor did the magical eye stop rolling in its socket.

            "I can't see you, of course, Sirius.  I can't hear you either, and I don't even know if you can hear me.  But this eye of mine tells me there is one soul in this house that is not accounted for.  I don't see you, but I do see that there is someone in this room besides myself."

How did you know it was me, Sirius questioned silently.  

            "How do I know it is you?  Elementary.  Any member of the Order who died knowing the location of this house could theoretically return as a spirit.  Several did, at first, though of course only I knew it.  But it would not have been vigilant to have invisible spectators at our meetings, even if they were in our confidences before their deaths.  I sealed the house, then, against all invisible entities.  But I could not seal it against any member of the Black family, as their ancestry in this soil is far stronger than ours.  This was not a problem, since no Black knew the new location of their house.  Except you."

Except me…  That was all well and good, Sirius thought, but he still could not communicate with his friends.  Then again, Moody would tell everyone that he was here, and then Harry could come by and keep him up-to-date.  It would not be much different from his previous house arrest, except now not only couldn't he leave, but he couldn't speak either.  Better than nothing.

            "I am not going to tell the others that you were here, Sirius."

What?!

            "I want you to leave.  I don't want you to come back here, I don't want you to go to Little Whinging, I especially don't want you to go to Hogwarts.  Go back where ever it is you came from."

This was not shaping out the way Sirius expected.

            "I am saying this for your own good, Sirius.  Once you decide to stay here and not move on with your death, it's final.  And I would be ashamed if a brave man like you skipped out on the last great adventure."

Adventure!  Sirius scoffed.  If only Moody knew what it was like, he would not care to stay dead either.

            "I know a lot of things, but I don't know about death.  So when I die, I am not going to return to the life that I have already fully explored.  Death is far more interesting.  But perhaps you are not looking for adventure.  Perhaps you were lonely in death.  Get over it.  We are all going to die one of these days.  Myself, and Remus, and Harry, and even Dumbledore.  And then who will be left for you to haunt?  If you don't move on, you will be left behind."

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More to come soon!  I'm going to try to get back to my old rhythm of this and finish it up.  Sorry I kept y'all waiting, folks.  Comments would help me know that I've held on to my readers.


	12. author's note

Author's note:

I haven't added to this story since the summer.  I got busy, I left for college, I forgot about it.  But amazingly, some of my readers did not forget about it.  I am shocked that my story has continued receiving reviews even into December, and it made me feel guilty for never finishing.

Well, now I am home for two weeks for Christmas break, and as I am stranded in suburbia without a driver's license [stupid failed road test], I see that the time has come to put this poor story to rest.  Many thanks to those precious few readers who have stuck around—I hope you won't be too disappointed in me.

There should be two final story chapters coming in the next couple days.  I can't renege on that, being that they are already written.  So yes, I hope some of you have stuck around, I apologize greatly for my tardiness, and consider this a Christmas/Hanukkah/etcetera present from this writer to her readers.  

Now a quick summary of what has transpired thus far, since you certainly don't remember and I doubt you'll bother rereading [though my chapters are quite short]:

Sirius is dead.  He finds himself in an afterlife/purgatory/Eternal Waiting Room type place attended by a Stage Manager a la Thornton Wilder, where he is joining James, Lily, and all our other dead buddies in an eternal slumber.  But James makes him realize that he has the choice to go back to Earth as a ghost, and against the better advice of the Stage Manager he does this.  Sirius re-emerges from the veil as a ghost, but as soon as he leaves the Department of Mysteries, he loses his ghostly body and becomes a featureless disturbance in the air.  He meets up with Nearly Headless Nick, who talks him through the ins-and-outs of ghosthood, and how the only places where he will be visible to mortals will be in the Department of Mysteries and at Hogwarts, where he may be able to finagle a position.  The ghostly Sirius follows Lupin home to Grimmauld Place, and Moody's magical eye can sense his presence.  Moody gives a one-sided lecture to the invisible Sirius on how he should move on with his death, and Sirius is placed in a philosophical quandry over whether it is preferable to be a ghost or be entirely dead and gone.  

Got it?  Good.

Happy Holidays!

Story to be uploaded shortly.

-Lizzzie-


	13. Finale

"You will be left behind."

The old auror's words echoed in Sirius's head as he ran through the streets of London.  If only he could flail out, throw something, even feel his feet slamming against the pavement…  But he just glided along in silence, hearing not the car motors and the bustle of the city, but just the tortured dialog of his own mind.  He knew the script far too well.

Left behind…

Sirius felt like his heart would burst, if it existed in the physical realm at that moment.  What was the truth?  James had said it was cowardice to stay dead, but Moody thought it cowardly to cling to life.  Nearly Headless Nick was the only one who had actually done it, but he certainly didn't seem happy.  Maybe that's because Nick is lonely, because he had returned for himself, unable to cope with being alone until his contemporaries joined him in death.  But Sirius hadn't returned to earth for himself; he'd returned for Harry!  Hadn't he?

The dirt and noise of the city gave way to the beginnings of suburbia as the sky shifted into twilight.  Untouched by hunger or exhaustion, Sirius ran through the night.

The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon as Sirius reached Privet Drive.  He felt certain that there would be some way, any way, for him to communicate with his godson, and so he paused to collect himself before passing through the door.  

The house was still quite asleep.  The automatic coffee maker would not start brewing for another few hours, timed to coincide with the arrival of the morning paper.  Vernon Dursley's snoring was barely audible over the roar of his air-conditioning unit.  Nevertheless, Sirius idiotically tip-toed up the stairs.

He was surprised to find Harry looking straight at him as he entered the room.  The boy had clearly not slept, not that night or any other recently.  He sat fully dressed on the edge of his bed, pajamas neatly folded at his side, as though he had just paused before resolving to get ready for bed.  His face was expressionless.

Sirius hesitated a moment before sitting down beside him.  Harry continued staring straight ahead.  His eyes were clear, and he seemed to be focusing intently on something, some internal monologue.  He wasn't praying, was he?  They stayed frozen that way, ghost and godson, for some time, Sirius just watching the boy think.  And for the first time, when he gazed at the boy with the unruly black hair, there was no thought in his mind of James—he thought only of Harry.

Harry jumped up with a start.  He half-ran to his desk, where a journal lay opened to a clean page.  Sirius watched as his godson grabbed a quill in his fist and scrawled, in violent block letters: I CAN'T.  The tip of the quill snapped.  Harry grabbed the journal by its binding and tore out the first page.  He watched it flutter to the ground, then did the same to the second page, and the third, then grabbing the leaves a dozen at a time and painfully wrenching them from their base.  When the binding was bare, the boy held the pages at arm's length and slowly, carefully dipped the corner of each into the flame of his bedside candle.  From over the boy's shoulder, the dead man watched the torn journal entries curl up and die.  Each entry was addressed as a letter… "Dear Sirius," they began, and Sirius turned away from reading more, for though the letters were addressed to him, they nevertheless were private and painful.  The boy's face was horribly bare in the flickering firelight.

At last, the pages were nothing but a pile of dirty black ashes on the desktop, ashes from which no phoenix would arise.  And Harry took a step backward, and another step, and fell on to the bed and wept.

"Harry," Sirius said quietly, pointlessly.  "Harry, no, don't cry.  I'm right here.  I'm not going anywhere, I'm right here.  No, Harry, please, look at me.  Just look at me.  You can't see me now, but when you get to school, I'll be there.  And we'll be together then, no more hiding, no more disguises.  And even after you leave, I'll always be here, I'll always watch over you…"  His voice hitched in his throat.  "Don't cry, Harry, just look at me.  Look at me, and see that I'm not going anywhere."

And Harry opened his eyes, and for one fleeting moment Sirius thought he saw him… but he was looking through the ghost, to the clock on the wall behind him, telling him that it was tomorrow.  Harry stood.  The tears on his cheek were long dried.  Sirius watched from behind as his godson walked to the door.

"I'm sorry, Sirius," he whispered.  "I have to forget."  And as the young man squared his shoulders and walked out the door into the new day, Sirius knew that the day had dawned on his last night on Earth.


	14. Epilogue

Epilogue

Harry Potter shivered against the early morning wind on top of the astronomy tower.  Though he had flown much higher while chasing errant snitches, he nevertheless felt a lurch as he glanced down five stories to the grounds below.

"I don't like it up here at all…" Harry glanced at the queasy Neville Longbottom to his left.

"Stow it, Neville, we've been coming up here for Astronomy lectures since first year."

            "Yeah, I know…  Say, where d'you suppose Ron and Hermione have gotten to?"

            "I dunno," Harry replied with forced off-handedness, "probably off snogging somewhere like usual?"

            "Yeah, probably," Neville said glumly.

            "Dwarf stars like our sun shine by hydrogen fusion, and this star at 9400 degrees Kelvin is a scorcher from 8.6 light years…" rambled Professor Sinistra in the background.

Harry retreated into himself.  Ron and Hermione were not off snogging—though it would be a pretty joke if they were!—but rather were in London, tailing Crabbe and Goyle to a meeting they suspected to be a Deatheater's recruitment rally.  Harry was much too recognizable to go incognito in that crowd, so he had been assigned the unfortunate duty of taking notes for the other two at the Astronomy lecture.

            "…orbit each other at a fifty year period with an average distance of twenty astronomical units and an orbital eccentricity from 31 AU to 8 AU…"

Harry shifted his weight between his feet and looked up.  Professor Sinistra was using a bewitched pointer that shone a pinprick of light on the sky above as though it were only the roof of a planetarium, and she traced a line toward the horizon from Orion's belt.  Harry's mind wandered again as he thought of his upcoming graduation, his final summer in the Dursley's home, his auror training to begin in the fall…

            "and located in Canis Major is the dog star, Sirius—"

Harry looked up in surprise.  He had not allowed himself to think of his godfather for months, and he hadn't heard his name spoken aloud in far longer.  What on earth…

            "the brightest star in the sky, Sirius was used by the ancient Egyptians to…"

Oh, that Sirius.  But the mention gave Harry that familiar pang he'd tried so hard to surpress.  He bit his lip, scrunched his face…  He would not get upset, no, he'd keep his composure, God no, not in the middle of class…  He turned his face heavenward in an effort to stop up the old tears, and his eyes fell on the brilliant star rising above the southeastern horizon.  Sirius twinkled.  Oh, but Sirius always twinkled, it was one of the most twinkly stars in the heavens, due to its variable refractions or some such rot.  And yet…  there was something different about the way the dog star twinkled tonight.  Like it was winking, laughing, at Harry.

As he gazed at the star, the tension fell out of his shoulders and his eyes unscrewed.  For the first time, he thought of his godfather without pain.  For the first time, he began to heal.

Fin

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Many thanks to any readers who have come back to read my long-delayed conclusion.  I'm glad to have finished it; it's a weight off my chest, and a closure for myself, in a way.  Thanks to Chelsea and Togarrop for your kind words (no fear about a sequel, I hate when writers do that too!].  If anyone else has stuck around, let me know…  I could use an ego boost before I get my first term marks.

Thanks for reading, and it's been fun writing for you all!

-Lizzzie-


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